The head of an investment firm is accused of using a $5 million Ponzi scheme to buy expensive cars and have his dead wife cryogenically frozen. (Shutterstock)

(Newser)
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A man being charged with running a Ponzi scheme out of New Jersey is not only accused of squirreling away $5 million of his customers' money, reports Bloomberg, but he allegedly spent it on some pretty standard and pretty strange stuff. Whileon Chay, 38, "would show up to meet with investors in different luxury cars," according to one official in his case, and he also dropped $150,000 to cryogenically freeze his dead wife in 2009, reports Forex Magnates. Chay is also a fugitive, having not shown up for a related case filed last year against his company, 4X Solutions Inc., according to an indictment unsealed in New York last week. He's thought to be on the run in South America.

In addition to funding a posh lifestyle on investors' dime, Chay lost upward of $2 million in commodities trading, reports CNN; a release from the Manhattan US Attorney's Office says he subsequently fled to Lima, Peru, in 2011. He's been charged with commodities fraud, which carries a maximum of 10 years in prison, as well as mail and wire fraud, each of which carry a maximum of 20 years. Chay is accused of promising investors 24% annual return rates with "no risk" involved. (Earlier this year, five former Bernard Madoff employees were convicted of fraud.)